Burrowing animals such as gophers and ground hogs cause considerable damage to fields, gardens, and like agricultural and horticultural locations. These animals typically dig tunnels or burrows where they live, disrupting the soil surface for a considerable area around the mouth or entrance of the burrows. The animals leave the burrow to find food, and that food commonly comprises desirable horticultural and agricultural plants growing close by, destroying the plants.
Thus considerable effort has been directed toward designing traps suitable to trap and kill burrowing animals. These traps are generally of two types—those traps where the animal is grasped by the trap, and those where it is stabbed or impaled by the trap. Stabbing traps typically include sharpened forks or spikes that are forced downward by a spring into an animal that trips a trigger.
Stabbing traps are disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 898,262 to Renken, U.S. Pat. No. 687,226 to Gorr, and U.S. Pat. No. 861,174 to Heil. These traps include stakes at bottoms thereof and are positioned in a location where a burrowing animal is likely to pass, for example over or near the mouth of a burrow, by pushing the stakes into the ground. Another stabbing trap, disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 954,996 again to Renken is located by making an excavation and seating the trap at or near the entrance of the burrow.
Stabbing traps are messy, as blood and gore is necessarily spread about in the area when an animal is stabbed. The resulting mess is distasteful.
Grasping traps in contrast can simply hold the animal, or more commonly kill the animal by strangulation, as it is often the neck area where pressure is applied by these traps. Blood and gore generally does not result from using grasping traps. Examples of grasping traps for use with burrowing animals are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,603,029 to Anderson, U.S. Pat. No. 2,475,467 to Alvau, and U.S. Pat. No. 2,148,813 to Hosmer. For use with burrowing animals, it is described that an excavation is made to place them in the underground burrow in the path of the burrowing animals. Thus it is required to locate the burrow underground, which can be problematic.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,059,164 to Woods discloses a trap similar to that of Anderson, but no directions are given for use with burrowing animals, and it is described as being used to hang over an animal hole in a wall.